The Worst Day Ever
by cupcake0118
Summary: James Potter is not having a good day...until his friends band together to cheer him up, and he reflects on the meaning of true friendship. One-shot. Pic not mine.


James Potter wondered if the day would ever end. It wasn't even lunch time, yet he'd had the most horrendous morning and wanted nothing more than to crawl back into his four-poster and sleep until a better day dawned.

First, he'd overslept. He was cross at his friends for not waking him when they had gone down to the Great Hall. He had missed breakfast as a result, and then he'd had to sprint to his first class which was double potions in the dungeons – the classroom furthest away from Gryffindor Tower. He had been two minutes late, but the Professor had given him detention any way.

He had thought his luck was changing when he had been forced to sit next to Lily Evans, as the seat next to her was the only one left available. Instead, she had smirked at him as he sat down, and leant over to whisper in his ear.

"Potter," she had breathed, "Did you know you have your robes on inside-out?"

James felt his face heat up and Lily had laughed quietly.

At that moment, the Professor had called them up to watch how to properly prepare the second phase of their potion. As he watched on, James hurriedly stripped his robe off and tried to put it back on the right way. As he forced his arm in to the sleeve, he knocked one of the students in front of him and sent the heavy-set boy into the table. The movement caused the cauldron to tip and the liquid sloshed over the side of the bench, drenching the front of the Professor's robes.

James was now only an hour and a half into the day and already he had a detention and fifty points had been taken from Gryffindor.

He sighed and glanced over his shoulder towards the back of the room. Sirius and Remus were sitting together, studiously working on their potion. Sirius had his sleeves rolled up and was peering quizzically into the cauldron and Remus was pouring over the text.

Well, at least that's what it _looked_ like they were doing, to the untrained eye. James knew better and he grinned. Over the past six years the four of them – Sirius, Remus, Peter and James – had perfected the ways of appearing to be concentrating in class while being in engaged in something else.

From his position he could not make out what his friends were up to, and he felt excluded. _If they had of woken me up this morning I could have been involved! _He thought to himself.

He turned back to his own potion which had turned thick and green instead of the liquid blue they were meant to be producing. He scowled as he poked the gurgling mix with his ladle. Giving up, he began to clear away his things.

The bell rang shortly afterwards and James managed to leave the dungeons in one piece.

"Prongs!" James turned at the sound of his nickname.

Sirius and Remus were walking languidly down the corridor behind him. James leant against a stone wall to wait for them.

"Alright, mate?" Sirius clapped him on the back as the trio began their assent to the Great Hall.

"I'll be better when I get some food into my stomach," James snapped, "I missed breakfast."

"Shouldn't have slept so long," Sirius shrugged and turned to greet Peter who had just arrived from Care of Magical Creatures.

"You should have woken me up!" James huffed, and Remus grinned.

"But you looked so peaceful," he teased.

"Shut up, Moony," James gave his friend a playful shove as they entered the Hall.

James felt much more himself after he had eaten three helpings of shepherd's pie.

With a full belly, he was on his way to Transfiguration, then Charms, and finally Defence Against the Dark Arts. Unfortunately, his bad luck returned as soon as he set foot in his Transfiguration classroom.

His bag split for no apparent reason, sending parchment and quills and ink to the floor. Then, when he had put his bag back together and cleaned up the mess, he had tripped on his robes on his way to his desk and all but fallen into his seat.

He couldn't transfigure his mouse into a teapot, no matter how many times he tried. In charms he set fire to his desk, burning a big black hole into the middle of the wood.

In Defence Against the Dark Arts, he mispronounced the incantation they were practising on each other, and sent one of his classmates to the hospital wing with purple blisters covering her face.

It was with a heavy heart James finally collapsed into an armchair in the Gryffindor common room.

James would have been happy to sit and mope in his chair until bedtime but his friends, who had witnessed his horrendous day, would not allow it. Instead, they declared it their mission to cheer him up.

Sirius told him how Severus Snape had been stung by some foul creature in Care of Magical Creatures. He was in the hospital wing, unconscious, but the foursome howled with laughter at their enemy's misfortune. Remus impersonated their potions master from this morning when James had accidentally coated him with liquid.

And Peter did his famous "happy dance" which involved a lot of silly moves he had seen on Muggle television. Soon Sirius and Remus began copying the movements, and finally James joined in too.

A few younger students shot them funny looks, but they didn't mind. The older students were used to the antics of their classmates, and paid them no attention.

James smiled as he lay in bed that night with tear tracks still etched on his cheeks and a stitch in his side from laughing so hard.

_It really is true,_ he thought as he rolled over and snuggled deeper under the covers, _you know you have true friends when you can be completely stupid with them. _


End file.
